


The One Where Judith is Adorable, and Daryl is a Complete Sap (But It's Okay Because Judith Won't Tell.)

by 1lostone



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Cigarettes, FLUFFY FLUFF THAT IS FLUFFY!, Fluff, Gen, Other, Rick and Daryl go on a run, Tiny endangerment of an infant but it's only for a second and completely accidental, fluffy fluff!, painfully tropey plot devices, preslash, tiniest bit of angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-14
Updated: 2016-04-14
Packaged: 2018-06-02 03:43:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,431
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6549184
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/1lostone/pseuds/1lostone
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Judith is not a fan of Daryl's smoking.</p><p> </p><p>Written for my adopted internet child, cb who is feeling shitty, sick, and trying to quit smoking. <3 you!</p>
            </blockquote>





	The One Where Judith is Adorable, and Daryl is a Complete Sap (But It's Okay Because Judith Won't Tell.)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Cornbread5287](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cornbread5287/gifts).



Daryl wasn’t a particularly sentimental person.  Oh,  back before the world went to shit, he used to get choked up at that one commercial with the abused animals and the sad song sung by that chick- but only a serial killer wouldn’t. He might be an asshole, but he wasn’t no serial killer.

Nowadays things were too damn tense to worry about sentimentality. After Alexandria had fallen, and after they’d gone through so much to pick it back up and put it back together again, sentimentality was a luxury. They had to eat. To eat they had to find food.  Hell, to _survive_ they were gonna need a helluva lot more than Carol’s weird-ass beet cookies, or this winter they’d be gnawin’ on each other as much as the damn walkers did.

The run had been mildly successful.  They hadn’t found the food, but they’d found potatoes that hadn’t sprouted too bad; someone’s garden whose owner was probably not gonna come back to claim their bounty. He and Rick had carefully pulled the veggies up by their roots, preserving what they could to replant, or turn into seeds. They’d had enough potatoes that there was a good damn shot that with what they’d take and with some of Maggie’s TLC, they’d be havin’ potatoes come spring.

Well. If they were still here. Daryl was no pessimist, but he sure as shit wasn’t no optimist either.

In the basement, they’d also found some bolts of cloth, some dibs and dabs of crafting equipment, and what looked like the motherfucking lottery of tobacco. Not any of the giggly shit, but actual, god’s balls to the wall, Virginian _tobacco_.  There was a pipe that looked like it was probably last used in the paleolithic era, and a metric fuckton of cartons of Morleys stuck in with the bags of tobacco like pillars holding up a house.

Daryl had actually _whooped_ with joy.

One of the issues of their current situation was that cigarettes were starting to not only become scarce, but be stale as all hell. Ain’t nothin’ worse than a stale cigarette. It was like eatin’ ass with a liver and onions chaser.

_Euuuuuuurgh._

The ride back to Alexandria had Rick shaking his head, and Daryl leaving a tiny trail of smoke trailing behind him through the cracked window of the Lincoln, looking a bit like a steam-powered train.

“You gonna smoke all of that before we get home?”

Daryl had just grunted, feeling a little lightheaded from all the carcinogens in his bloodstream. He’d been a smoker for longer than Rick had been a _father_ and he figured he had the right, damnit.

Besides. Wasn’t like he was probably gonna have to worry about dying from cancer at the rate they were all goin’.

“Maybe,” Daryl exhaled pointedly, making little O-shaped smoke rings just to be a dick.

Rick just shrugged and cranked up the volume of that stupid-ass Ronnie Dawson CD he’d come across, pointedly looking right at Daryl as he sang.

Loudly.

... _painfully_ off-key.

Daryl smoked in silence all the way to Alexandria, trying not to smirk. When Rick wasn’t doing the scary-as-fuck thing he did to keep them all alive, he was .... pretty damn funny actually.

Not that Daryl’d ever tell him.

****

Daryl’s love of smoking came to a screeching halt exactly two days after they’d returned to Alexandria, smug as hell for their modest run and Daryl practically floating on the ground from the buzz of chainsmoking.

That sentimentality that Daryl had been so adamant about not feeling?

It hit him with all the subtlety of a punch to the balls.

Judith was colicky.

Normally, she just kind of hung out with all of them, mellow in the way that all true little asskickers were, but that night, she’d been fussy as all hell.  Rick’s room was shut. Michonne was... well. Daryl didn’t want to think about where Michonne was, but the squeaking bedsprings made things that Daryl would really rather continue to ignore lurch deep in his gut with something he wasn’t quite ready to call jealousy. Carl and Enid were canoodling in the porch swing, sharing a Dr. Strange comic by candlelight which Daryl absolutely _refused_ to find adorable, and Carol had been dead asleep, starfished across her bed and snoring slightly.   Daryl, who had been smoking, carefully blowing his smoke out of the open window in his bedroom had gone to Judith’s cot, setting the burning cig on the corner of the dresser before picking her up and bouncing her a few times on his hip.

Judith had snuffled pathetically into his neck, and Daryl tried to tell himself that that goey, smooshy feeling in the region of his heart was normal. He couldn’t help bending down to give her a little forehead kiss, and the way she wrinkled up her little brow and scrunched up her nose made him snort a soft laugh... until he realized that Jude was pulling _away_ from him.

Oh. The smokes. She didn’t like the _smell_.  

“Alright, little A. I get it. Dead assholes rotting all over me is fine. Not taking a shower in a damn month is fine.” Daryl leaned down and arranged Judith in her cot, feeling absurdly guilty for some reason. He’d wished that he’d thought to wash his hands or something. He leaned down to tap her on the nose with his non-dominant finger. “Ciggy smoke- not fine.”  In doing so, two of his cigs fell out of his pocket and into Judith’s crib.  Daryl smirked a bit when she grabbed at it, careful to not let her put it in her mouth.

But... she wasn’t.

Judith would put the cigarette _near_ her mouth, do this weird scrunchy thing with her face like she was constipated, then take the cig away from her mouth and look up at him.

Daryl cocked his head, then watched as Judith did the same thing again, until it occurred to him that _she was imitating what she’d seen Daryl do._

  
Daryl gaped at her, then snatched away the two cigarettes, looking guiltily around like Rick or Carl would repel from the ceiling to kick his ass for allowing Judith to touch the damn things. Or Carol would appear in the shadows with her wicked knife, ready to fillet his gullet for being such a dumbass.

Daryl’s heart, which had seen better days, gave a painful lurch at the idea that out of all the things he did, Judith had connected that fucking _cigarettes_ with the ‘Daryl’-shaped hole in her life. _Now,_  they looked like what they were. White, insidious, filthy, bringers of death and despoilers of innocent baby girls’ opinions of one Daryl Dixon.

Sentimentality? Nah. This was closer to heart-wrenching. Made that commercial with the abused and sad-looking dogs and the singer chick look like the one where they’re all goin’ to Disneyland after the Superbowl.

Daryl broke them in half and tossed them out the still-open window, ignoring the indignant squawks from below of the two in the porch swing. He quickly jogged to the bathroom and brushed his teeth, changed his shirt, and washed his hands and arms before making a bottle and jogging back upstairs.

Judith did the little scrunchy-face thing again, and Daryl couldn't help but grin a little at her. Judith doing her “Daryl Face” was pretty damn cute. Especially now that she wasn’t imitating him smoking.

Judith was much more happy to see him and snuggled back into the crook of his neck, drinking contentedly at her bottle. Daryl was glad that no one could see the doofy look on his face, but he didn’t get to just hold the littlest member of her family very often.

Man. If Merle could see him now. Actually, Merle loved babies. It was the strangest damn thing, tell the truth.

Briefly, Daryl thought of his stash of cigarettes and pipe tobacco. Quitting It wouldn’t be easy. He knew all the signs and after-effects, and had tried before. Maybe the world ending and making things like cigarettes and tobacco in short supply was for a _reason_. He switched Judith to his other arm and she made a sleepy, contented sound.

Daryl kissed her head and inhaled the faint baby-shampoo scent of her hair, feeling faintly guilty at the tiniest whiff of cigarette smoke that still clung to her sweetness.  

No... quitting that addiction wouldn’t be easy. But, as he watched Judith sleep, curled into his arms like a cub with its mama, Daryl knew that he’d do everything he could to try harder.

For her.

**Author's Note:**

> :D
> 
> Hope you liked it! It was not betad, and I wrote it in one evening while at soccer practice with my kid, so sorry for any glaring errors. Feel free to point them out to me. xoxo


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